Running Zoom video conferencing client on the Pi

[procount]

I have tried running zoom under Android on the RPi4 4GB.
I installed Konsta's LineageOS 16.0 for the RPi4. Then I installed GAPPS pico to get the Play Store, from where I installed Zoom.

I only had the RPF camera without a mic on my Pi, but I managed to setup a meeting with my laptop that had video and mic.
Initial impressions were quite good as I got video in both direction, and the audio from the laptop mic came through on the Pi's HDMI. Obviously I couldn't test the audio in the other direction.

The video and audio came through consistently from the laptop, but unfortunately, the video from the Pi occasionally froze on my first test. On my second meeting, the video worked throughout the meeting for over 10 mins, but then froze again when I started messing with the settings. so maybe if you just video and don't mess with the settings it will be fine

Screen sharing and whiteboard both seemed to work.

The video lag was under 1 second, and the audio was about half that, or less.

[ejolson]

The video lag was under 1 second, and the audio was about half that, or less.

This is a very interesting report. Thanks for sharing.

[zooropean]

I have tried running zoom under Android on the RPi4 4GB.
I installed Konsta's LineageOS 16.0 for the RPi4. Then I installed GAPPS pico to get the Play Store, from where I installed Zoom.

I only had the RPF camera without a mic on my Pi, but I managed to setup a meeting with my laptop that had video and mic.
Initial impressions were quite good as I got video in both direction, and the audio from the laptop mic came through on the Pi's HDMI. Obviously I couldn't test the audio in the other direction.

The video and audio came through consistently from the laptop, but unfortunately, the video from the Pi occasionally froze on my first test. On my second meeting, the video worked throughout the meeting for over 10 mins, but then froze again when I started messing with the settings. so maybe if you just video and don't mess with the settings it will be fine

Screen sharing and whiteboard both seemed to work.

The video lag was under 1 second, and the audio was about half that, or less.

Installing Android on my RPI4 was about the only thing I hadn't tried.

I will do this later and see how it works.

Thank you!

[procount]

I managed to scrounge a USB sound card off my son for my Pi, so now I have video and sound in both directions!
It appears that the video that the Pi is sending will freeze if the main video screen is removed, so like if you try to show the participants screen, or the meeting settings etc. Ending the meeting or closing the App doesn't seem to fix it and it requires a restart. It needs some more investigation to be honest as I've just had a quick play, but for straight forward video-chat it seems fine, or everything else without video sending.

[zooropean]

OK got it running. But the mic on the USB webcam is not working.


Video looks a bit better.

[procount]

I managed to repeat this successfully on a Pi3B+ as well.
The video still freezes if you move to another window, and the video has a little more latency, maybe 1.5 sec. On the whole it is less responsive than the Pi4 as you might expect.
I did recover the video from a frozen state by leaving and rejoining the meeting on one occasion.
The version of zoom I downloaded for the Pi3 seemed to be a later version than the one I used for the Pi4, but not sure. It might have been to do with how I set the meeting up.

[zooropean]

I managed to repeat this successfully on a Pi3B+ as well.
The video still freezes if you move to another window, and the video has a little more latency, maybe 1.5 sec. On the whole it is less responsive than the Pi4 as you might expect.
I did recover the video from a frozen state by leaving and rejoining the meeting on one occasion.
The version of zoom I downloaded for the Pi3 seemed to be a later version than the one I used for the Pi4, but not sure. It might have been to do with how I set the meeting up.

I didn't have the freezing issue-just that the video is slow and not useful.

And the mic not working from the USB webcam.

[fruitoftheloom]

I managed to repeat this successfully on a Pi3B+ as well.
The video still freezes if you move to another window, and the video has a little more latency, maybe 1.5 sec. On the whole it is less responsive than the Pi4 as you might expect.
I did recover the video from a frozen state by leaving and rejoining the meeting on one occasion.
The version of zoom I downloaded for the Pi3 seemed to be a later version than the one I used for the Pi4, but not sure. It might have been to do with how I set the meeting up.

I didn't have the freezing issue-just that the video is slow and not useful.

And the mic not working from the USB webcam.

Has anyone tried jitsi-meet in chromium-browser ???

https://meet.jit.si/

[zooropean]

I managed to repeat this successfully on a Pi3B+ as well.
The video still freezes if you move to another window, and the video has a little more latency, maybe 1.5 sec. On the whole it is less responsive than the Pi4 as you might expect.
I did recover the video from a frozen state by leaving and rejoining the meeting on one occasion.
The version of zoom I downloaded for the Pi3 seemed to be a later version than the one I used for the Pi4, but not sure. It might have been to do with how I set the meeting up.

I didn't have the freezing issue-just that the video is slow and not useful.

And the mic not working from the USB webcam.

Has anyone tried jitsi-meet in chromium-browser ???

https://meet.jit.si/

I have read that jitsi does work. But not interested since I want to be able use my RPI4 for my kids' Zoom meetings for school.

[procount]

How topical -> https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/workin ... pberry-pi/

[zooropean]

How topical -> https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/workin ... pberry-pi/

I saw that last night-he has not replied to my Zoom comment.

[zooropean]

How topical -> https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/workin ... pberry-pi/

I saw that last night-he has not replied to my Zoom comment.

Oh and I just tweeted him asking about Zoom.

[naradek]

Hi,
I have the same problem with Zoom on my kids RPi4/4GB. Lags/freezing.
I was thinking... maybe overclocking CPU or GPU will help a little bit? Did someone try Zoom with overclocked RPi4?

[zooropean]

Hi,
I have the same problem with Zoom on my kids RPi4/4GB. Lags/freezing.
I was thinking... maybe overclocking CPU or GPU will help a little bit? Did someone tried Zoom with overclocked RPi4?

Yep same with me.

But I tried Hangouts and Duo and they worked much better. So the RPI4 should work better with Zoom.

[bmoran]

HAs Zoom responded to the ticker on April 9?

[zooropean]

HAs Zoom responded to the ticker on April 9?

Looks like a no but hope I am wrong.

I never got a reply on twitter either from the guy who wrote the article mentioned above.

[Botspot]

HAs Zoom responded to the ticker on April 9?

Not mine either.

[zooropean]

Seems to me neither Zoom nor the Foundation really cares about getting this to work!

[Botspot]

For anyone interested in my Zoom support ticket (the request for them to fix their chrome app), I received an email from them this morning:

As our world comes together to slow the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, the Zoom Support Center has continued to operate 24x7 globally to support our customers through this unprecedented period. Given increased usage from businesses small and large and exponentially growing demand from the education and healthcare sectors, we have experienced an unexpected surge in support requests.

For the months of May and June, the following temporary changes will be in effect:
For all Free account holders, we will only be able to offer unrestricted access to our Online Resources.

We will continue to offer web support to owners and administrators of Pro accounts.

We will continue to offer web, chat, and phone support to owners and administrators of Zoom Business and Enterprise accounts.
Unfortunately, we are unable to respond to your open tickets at this time. We encourage you to leverage our Online Resources. If you are a part of a corporate account, and need advanced technical support beyond our Online Resources, please contact your Zoom account administrators.

We understand that some of these changes are challenging, and we appreciate your patience as we scale up our support to meet the dramatic influx of customer demand. Together, we will help tackle one of the largest and most disruptive crises we have faced in our lifetime.

Thank you for choosing Zoom to stay connected and safe in these uncertain times.
Zoom Support Team

I checked my support ticket, and now the status is "solved", with no comments. Nothing.

Not impressed, Zoom.

[DougieLawson]

When I worked for IBM's Tech Support we were risking get sensitive body parts nailed to the wall for closing a ticket without resolution and without the client's agreement.

I've had British Telecom (now BT) do the ticket closing game to me. I got compensation (for loss of service) after I complained to the chairman of the board about it. They closed three tickets without finishing with the obvious test of picking up their phone and calling me to check the line fault was fixed. Curiously, they found and resolved their equipment failure within three hours of me complaining to the very top of the organisation. It's no hardship to do those sorts of trivial tests but it wasn't in their offshore call centre's script.

[ejolson]

When I worked for IBM's Tech Support we were risking get sensitive body parts nailed to the wall for closing a ticket without resolution and without the client's agreement.

In my opinion there could be an audit of offshoring support, technology and any supply chain to countries governed by politically hostile entities to identify all infrastructure critical in the sense that going without it for three years would be unacceptable. It's not astonishing that people are too scared to complain and too lazy to do something about the current state of affairs.

Since it wasn't a ticket regarding another security problem, then it should be a low priority but not simply closed.

[hippy]

I checked my support ticket, and now the status is "solved", with no comments. Nothing.

Not impressed, Zoom.

It's not great but isn't this just manifestation of "You get what you pay for" ?

And little different to how some people have been treated on this forum when they express a desire to have something they think the RPT / RPF should provide.

Perhaps Zoom considered it as "insulting" to be asked to provide something they don't care for doing. I think we all know how it goes down when some poster arrives here insisting "You guys need to make this a TOP PRIORITY".

How does it go again - "If you don't like how it is you are free to do it yourself", "come back when you have a prototype"

[ejolson]

I checked my support ticket, and now the status is "solved", with no comments. Nothing.

Not impressed, Zoom.

It's not great but isn't this just manifestation of "You get what you pay for" ?

One important thing with volunteer work is to remember that the only merit you will ever receive is acknowledgement of good work. As a result doing something badly for free is completely useless--it does not put bread on the table, it doesn't increase your reputation and most importantly it shows neither charity nor good will towards others.

Even though corporations are people too, it is unsurprising such an entity would care not about the latter. Building a corporate brand, however, is all about increasing reputation. Though arguably more useful than a donation of defective coronavirus testing kits

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/ ... 00809.html

it would be nice if Zoom didn't view the customer as the product (maybe they don't), but instead focused on building a reputable brand (maybe they are). I'm actually happy with how Zoom worked out this semester during the crazy switch to distance learning.

[rpdom]

I've had British Telecom (now BT) do the ticket closing game to me. I got compensation (for loss of service) after I complained to the chairman of the board about it.

I once got BT to give me compensation for closing a ticket and not telling me. It was for reactivation of a line. They activated it and started charging me for it, but didn't tell me it was active. The first I knew about it was when the phone (that I had ready for when it did get activated) rang and it was a wrong number.

[rpdom]

One important thing with volunteer work is to remember that the only merit you will ever receive is acknowledgement of good work. As a result doing something badly for free is completely useless--it does not put bread on the table, it doesn't increase your reputation

That depends on the volunteer work. I (until lockdown) did volunteer work as a librarian and running a code club in a library. Both of those roles will count on my CV and I will be able to get good references from the people in charge.